flowers and foliage. These imitation hangings were represented as suspending from a horizontal rod, hanging perfectly straight, or in some cases from fixed points at regular intervals so as to give them a festoon-like appearance. This was a common method of decorating the lower wall space of house and palace interiors, as well as of churches and chapels. A good illustration of this method of decoration is seen in the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican, where the lower walls under the frescoes of Pinturrichio, Botticelli, C. Rosselli, Perugino, and others are decorated with painted imitations of tapestry hangings. The friezes of the old houses under notice were very important features in the decoration, and were as a rule extremely beautiful in design and colour, the designs usually consisting of a row of fruit trees, such as the orange, lemon, pomegranate, apple, etc., alternating, and placed behind and above a net-work fence, which usually divided the lower wall decoration from the frieze proper, while between the trees, and at the bottom appeared groups of gay flowers, and singing birds at intervals helped to enliven the scene. The friezes often represented stately gardens or orchards, painted in the lively colours of nature, with the backgrounds behind the trees and flowers in black, and the spaces between a deep vermilion red. In some cases the garden frieze was continuous, and complete in itself, and other examples, as in the wall decoration from an old house formerly in the Mercato Vecchio, and now in the monastery of San Marco at Florence, the trees were placed under Gothic canopies, with little towers between, or in arcading supported by pillars, above which were triangular panels filled with heraldic devices. Some of the wall decorations of these old houses had other schemes of diaper-like ornamentation, consisting of lozenge-shaped and foiled figures interlacing at the angles, some spaces being occupied by figures of ladies on horseback, and others by various kinds of birds grouped in landscapes, while the alternating spaces were occupied by circles containing shields with heraldic devices, and around these foliated ornament. The general colour scheme of the walls, frieze, and ceiling was daring, yet delightful. It consisted of a warm harmony of strong reds, black, various greens, golden yellows and russets, modified here and there by the introduction of pearly greys, umber tones, and mellowed white. Rooms decorated in this fashion would be very sumptuous and rich, and would not require the aid of pictures to help out the colour scheme. (Plate [18].) A satisfactory finish to such apartments was admirably achieved by the furniture of the period, which consisted of beautiful Cassoni, in carved or inlaid woods, or decorated in gesso-work, painted and gilded, with representations of lively scenes of the tournament, of hunting and hawking parties, and other romantic subjects. The chairs, the seats against the walls, and the table were of carved walnut, chestnut or cypress wood. If we add to these such accessories as Majolica dishes of
PLATE XIX
PORTION OF COVED-CEILING DECORATION BY GIULIO ROMANO IN THE PALAZZO VECCHIO AT MANTUA
lustred pottery, copper and brass vessels, Venetian glass and Oriental carpets, we may conceive some idea of the magnificent effect that a reception-room must have presented in one of these old Florentine houses in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.
In the charming medley of forms and colour which the wall decorations of these houses presented we may clearly see the development of Giotto’s Italian Gothic ornament, still mixed with some of the older Romanesque forms that Torriti loved to use, and while Saracenic influences are not absent, the chief element of beauty in the mixture is the definite expression of natural form and colour, obtained by the trees, flowers, and birds which are introduced in such a dignified manner that they harmonise perfectly with the severer forms of the ornament to which they are allied.
It is to be regretted that this interesting class of ornament was not more fully developed in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries alongside, if not instead of, the less virile but more classical type which was adopted and developed by Raffaelle and his pupils, Giovanni da Udine, Giulio Romano, and Perina del Vaga, when they came to decorate the Loggie of the Vatican, the interiors of the “Villa Madama,” Palazzo del Tè, the Ducal Palace at Mantua (Plates [19] and [20]), and the Castello Sant’ Angelo at Rome.